


Variations on a Theme

by alittlebriton



Series: Shadowhunters Codas [8]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Coda, Episode: s03e05 Stronger Than Heaven, Established Relationship, Feels, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s03e05 Stronger Than Heaven, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 01:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14367861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebriton/pseuds/alittlebriton
Summary: Three conversations that could have happened after Episode 3x05 Stronger Than Heaven, all based around these lines:"Yes, there will be life after you. If I'm not killed by something or someone, I will go on living. That's a certainty. It doesn't make me happy about it. And it doesn't make our life together any less."





	Variations on a Theme

**Author's Note:**

> Something different this time. Not my usual Coda, because I had too many feels to fit into one that I wanted to make my Coda canon.

**_Precipitando:_ ** _Rushing_

 

“I don’t want to be something left in a box,” Alec whispered in the dark and Magnus rolled over, glad at least he’d given up the pretence of sleep. He fluttered his fingers and a soft warm glow filled the lamp by the side of the bed, casting Alec’s profile in shadows and bronze. 

Magnus trailed his fingertips down Alec’s chest and held his breath. 

“I don’t”, he whispered more fiercely, face contorting into sharp shapes as he frowned. “I know that the other people that you’ve loved didn’t want to either, or thought they’d be more than that, and I’m sure I sound selfish or egotistical but I want to be more. I feel like I could be, I should be _more_. I can’t just be one more love affair to you, not when you’re _everything_ to me.” 

Alec’s hand rose to clench tight round Magnus’ fingers and he finally tilted his body and looked at Magnus, the lamplight reflected in his eyes until they brimmed over with gold. 

“That’s not how it works, Alexander,” he said as gently as he could, freeing his hand so he could wipe under his eyes. 

Dating an immortal is easy. Loving one is easy. Living with one - that’s the hard part. It’s why Etta and countless others had left. Perhaps – perhaps if he’d been able to have children, or if they’d been able to marry. They might have remained, knowing they’d always be a part of his life, that a part of them would live on in his life. But instead he loved and they left him and he loved again, eventually.  

“And I know it’s worse for you - I know that, I know how much it hurts for you to be the one left, still here, to be the one that has to carry the memories. It’s just. It kills me to think that in a hundred years you could be having the same conversation with someone else and they’ll be the one you love with all your heart.” 

“Alexander.” His wet fingertips pressed against Alec’s mouth as he tried to shush him but Alec licked the salt from his skin and kept talking, urgent and fast and heedless of the gulps of air he took in between thoughts. 

“Because you have to move on after I die otherwise you won’t be living. You have too much love inside you to shut it off forever. And I wouldn’t want you to. But god, Magnus, I’m so jealous. I’m jealous of that person because they’ll get to have to you and I will be a few photos in a box that they get curious about.” 

“Yes,” Magnus whispered back, watching Alec grow immediately still. “Yes, there will be life after you. If I’m not killed by something or someone, I will go on living. That’s a certainty. It doesn’t make me happy about it. And it doesn’t make our life together any less.”

He surged up on one hand looked down at Alec, mapping the shadowed valleys of his beautiful face, the one that had so entranced him in the blue lights of Pandemonium, when all Alec was to him was a full set of lips and large doe eyes and nothing else.

“You’re asking that because I might experience something more than once, if that makes it less precious to me.”

Alec blinked at him and managed a small nod. Magnus threaded his fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and softly stroked his thumb over his cheek. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever taken love for granted. Not after the first time. After that I saw every love as something miraculous. My love for you only grows with every sunrise. It never feels like less of a gift.” Like it’s something he should protect and nurture and celebrate as often as he could. 

“No matter how often I love you, my heart is not a muscle that gets worn out.”

He knew what Alec was asking him, deep down. Does love feel less to immortals? Stupid question, because how would he know? But if Mundanes find love once, maybe a handful of times in their 

lifespan, maybe that rarity makes it more precious. Perhaps you could love and love again without the intensity fading. But Magnus was unaware of many immortals that have fallen in love and remained. Centuries is a long time to be happy with someone. The true value of love, the value in love, was as much of a mystery to Magnus as it was to Alec. 

“It feels unequal,” Alec said eventually, eyes fixed somewhere over Magnus’ shoulder. “Like you already can’t give me your whole heart because you have to keep some back for when I’m gone.”

Magnus winced, but Alec continued relentlessly. 

“It’s likely I’m just the latest in a series of loves. Whereas you’re special to me because you’re who I want my life to be with.”

He bristled at the implication. “You’re acting like I’m treating you like a one-night stand. You _are_ special, Alexander.”

“For someone with your lifespan, I might as well be a one-night stand,” Alec retorted. “I’m a blink. A pang of heartache when you think back to the early twenty-first century.”

“Or you could be the love of my immortal life but I will never know because you drowned yourself in self-pity before we got there,” Magnus snapped, and suddenly they were standing on either side of the bed, Alexander’s face stern and flushed with anger.  

“Can you stop? Just stop telling me that what I feel is nothing and acting like it’s an annoyance. _I’m trying to deal with this._ And it’s not like I have a lot of people to turn to that will understand.” 

Magnus drew a breath and willed his hands to stop flexing. 

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Well it sure as hell feels like it,” Alec snarled. 

“It’s – this is what I meant, by the here and now. This is exactly my point. If we dwell on the future, we don’t enjoy the present and I’ve lost too many people that way, Alexander.” He shut his mouth to stop himself from going down that path too far or opening himself up to any more questions about his past.

“Well,” Alec said after a long pause, in that fake, calm voice Magnus so hated. “I guess I should just be content to be another of your good soldiers.”

He glared at Magnus, the muscle in his jaw twitching, and then turned to pick up his clothes from the chair.

“I’ll see myself out,” he added, not even looking back at Magnus before he left. When the door slammed shut a couple of minutes later, Magnus finally let go, throwing pent-up magic and destroying one of his favourite lamps. Effort, indeed.

 

 

 

**_Smorzando:_ ** _Dying away_

 

He stopped short in the doorway of Magnus’ bedroom, not moving forward yet swaying on his feet. He was transfixed by the pile of shirts on the bed. Alec could guarantee they were all his size and by the looks of them, his usual dark colours. They could almost be his own shirts except they were clearly new. 

He swallowed, trying to force down the knot that had grown in his throat. He was trying and failing not to see this pile of shirts, taunting him on the sheets, as a slap in the face. He wasn’t wanted permanently but here, have some new shiny things to shut you up. No more reasons to move in, not when he had an ever-present summoner of clothes.  

Alec swallowed again and forced himself to step inside, avoiding the shirts and taking off his shoes. He threw his blazer on the chair and rolled up his shirt sleeves, eyes fixed on the wall. Maybe -

“There you are,” Magnus said from behind him and Alec turned around, automatically accepting the glass handed to him. “Cheers.”

Alec didn’t pause after Magnus clinked their glasses together and drained half of it in one gulp, the now-familiar burn relaxing him rather than revolting him.  

“You haven’t tried them on.” Magnus admonished him, waving his glass at the shirts with an impish smile and Alec had to get out of there, a sudden buzzing filling his head making him move around Magnus and out, out until he stood on the balcony and took in large gulps of air. The streets below beeped and bustled and for a moment he envied every Mundane going home to their families and loved ones and their simple lives. 

“Alexander?” He squeezed his eyes shut when he heard Magnus’ voice, all tones of worried and apprehensive and worst of all, resigned. He drained his drink.  

“I don’t want you to think that this is easy for me,” Magnus started. Alec knew without turning around that he was holding himself, jaw tight. Buttoned up and impenetrable.

“Yes, there will be life after you. If I’m not killed by something or someone, I will go on living. That’s a certainty. It doesn’t make me happy about it. And it doesn’t make our life together any less.” 

He bowed his head when Magnus’ tone turned from anger to pleading. He should have left after he apologised. He should never have opened that damn box. Above everything else, he wished he didn’t want, so badly it hurt like a pulled muscle in his chest, to know their names, hear their stories, find out why they were so important so he could figure out how he could at least match them.

“Maybe I should stay at the Institute tonight. I’m not sure I’m going to be good company.” He tried to keep his voice light but it fell flat. It wasn’t much use hiding from Magnus anyway - and when was it that he’d started wanting to?  

“Please don’t,” came Magnus’ soft voice, closer than before, and his arm slid round Alec’s waist. Alec could feel him edge closer until his chest was pressed against Alec’s back and his breath tickled Alec’s neck. 

“Not tonight, please. I don’t want to be alone. And I don’t want you to be alone.”  

What happens if he stays and still feels alone? Alec wanted to ask, but the words dried on his tongue. He dipped his head in a nod and then turned in Magnus’ arms to look at his worried face. 

“Alright,” he said, capitulating wearily, every bone in his body tired of fighting, tired of worrying, tired of thinking. “Just give me a few moments. I’m going to shower.” Alec tried a small smile that he was sure turned out more like a grimace and patted Magnus on the arm, extricating himself from his grip. He could still feel the reluctance in Magnus’ fingers as he undressed.  

Alec rested his head against the cool tiles, shuddering under the water. His brain felt hot and it kept flitting between images of that picture of Magnus and George and those same shirts and then back to Magnus’ face when he’d told Alec that he’d kept something for every lover he’d had. Every committed relationship. All the ones he’d outlived. Maybe some of them left. Or maybe Magnus had spent decades with each of them, watching as they decayed and drooled their way into their graves, his gaze slipping from them to others out of a sense of dignity.  

His palm flattened against the tile and he let out a small keening noise in pain. It wasn’t a good time to have this revelation. He could keep it together for one night. One night and then he could go back to work and try to figure out this Owl creature once and for all. One night. 

Alec nodded to himself and raised his head, letting the water push his hair off his face before he turned the shower off. When he left the bathroom, the rest of the loft was quiet. 

“Magnus?” he called softly, leaving wet footprints as he walked back to the living room in his towel. He turned to check the bedroom, and found the pile of shirts gone and instead, his own clothes that he knew he had left at the Institute and not at the loft. He wasn’t sure what to think of that. But he pulled on the hoodie and sweatpants anyway. 

Alec finally found him at his desk, labelling jars, a muscle in Magnus’ cheek twitching which proved that he’d heard Alec call for him and chose to remain there. 

“Hey. I’m sorry about earlier. I had to get out of my head for a while.” His smile this time felt better, even if it itched to force it. 

Magnus looked up then with dark eyes and Alec could see the moment Magnus decided it was easier to believe the lie than press the issue. It was shocking how quickly he was getting used to feeling disappointed when he got exactly what he wished for.

 

 

**_Lusigando:_ ** _Coaxing_

 

“The here and now is all very well, but I need a future. I need to know you think about us.” 

“I have more future than you do,” Magnus told him and then bit his tongue at how awful that sounded. 

Alec stared at him then lifted one shoulder, visibly shaking that off. “You probably would anyway. Shadowhunter. We love young, die young. It’s how that works. It’s why everyone is obsessed with having large families.” 

Alec finally touched him, a light graze of his knuckles along Magnus’ bicep. Magnus leaned in closer, not sure when they decided talking about this while sitting in bed was a good idea, but he felt happier that Alec was relaxed enough to go to bed with him. Maybe it was after the fourth martini.

“I mean, I’m talking about the future, when I’m old and grey and can’t walk and for all I know, I’ll be taken by a Ravener demon next Tuesday.”

God how he hated Alec’s logic sometimes. But two could play at that game. 

“We could simply fall out of love, you know. Most relationships don’t end in death. They just end.”  

Alec tilted his head and looked at him like Magnus had said something so stupid, he didn’t know where to begin. Magnus was not used to that look, but it was expressive enough to recognise at first glance.  

“What?”

“How much do you know about Nephilim?”

“I learned they were wealthy, deadly and annoying early on, darling. Why do you ask?” Magnus said drily. 

“Nephilim - well, maybe it’s not true. Maybe we just have short life spans. But it’s said that Nephilim fall in love once and once only.”

Magnus’ mind raced. “That can’t be true. That’s ridiculous. Look at your parents.” 

“My dad fell in love with someone not my mother. Just means he and my mother weren’t in love to begin with.”

“Lydia.”

“Married John and that’s it. He died. She won’t love again. Which is why she and I would have been perfect.”

“You and Lydia would have been a disaster.”

“A perfect disaster,” Alec allowed.  

“You were in love with Jace!” Magnus was panicking now. 

“No, I wasn’t. What I felt for Jace was desire and safety and a different kind of love mixed together. You know this. And now you’re pulling at straws.”

Magnus slumped back upon the pillows, defeated. “Jesus,” he muttered weakly. “So you’re saying....”

“Yup. The best scenario we have is me being old and drooling and you having to look after me, which is simply... horrifying.”

“It’s horrifying for _you_ ,” Magnus pointed out. “Don’t I get a say in wanting you to live until you’re one hundred?”

Alec ignored him. “The other scenarios are you leaving me for whatever reason, and I’m working really hard on making sure that doesn’t happen again -“ “ _Alexander!_ ” “ - or me dying, which I can do at any time,” he finished with a triumphant gleam in his eye.

His boyfriend was dealing with this better than he might have been, but he was still being a petty dickhead about it. Both might have been the gin talking. 

“I told you I don’t want to think about that.”

“My point is, Magnus, is that you’re going to have to.” Alexander suddenly became serious and fixed Magnus with a look that suggested the gin had worn off a while ago and he’d simply been bringing Magnus around to what he was about to say.

“Because I don’t want to be a two-month relationship when just one of my things ends up in your little box. I want the whole thing. I want a box of my own. That’s what I want from you, to know that we have a plan for a life, for the both of us, together.”

Magnus cupped his cheek.

“My darling Alexander. Why do you love to plan so much?” 

“It helps me sleep,” came Alec’s honest answer and Magnus sighed, giving in.  

“Yes, there will be life after you. If I’m not killed by something or someone, I will go on living. That’s a certainty. It doesn’t make me happy about it. And it doesn’t make our life together any less.” 

“So what happens when I look like your grandfather?” 

“You’re not God and nor are you Indonesian,” Magnus said, and Alec kicked him. 

“Ow,” he grumbled, rubbing his shin. 

“Can you please, for the love of Raziel, for your love of _me_ , take this seriously?”

“When you are old, and grey, and I have to push you round in a wheelchair, or when you need oxygen tanks to breathe or you’ve forgotten who I am, I will still love you and laugh with you and go to bed with you and bathe you and make sure you are cared for,” Magnus replied with more force than he thought himself capable of.

“I can cast glamours to make other’s think we are the same age, if you care about appearances. I can use my magic to ease your pain and preserve memories. What I could never do, if we last seventy years with each other and I’m still lucky enough to see you draw breath, is _resent_ you.”

Alec was shocked into silence, his eyes wide. Magnus watched him visibly deflate.

“Oh,” is all he said.

“Yes,” Magnus said testily before Alec leaned in and kissed him, surprising him so he made an undignified ‘mmph’ noise into Alec’s mouth. 

“I’m sorry.” Magnus wrapped his fingers around Alec’s wrist and looked into apologetic eyes. 

“You’re forgiven,” he said, and meant it.


End file.
